Voice Test

[defendless]

{A}

[If you find yourself in the woods for any reason, and you happen to be preparing food, you might turn around and find yourself with a certain fluffy visitor, staring intently at your meal with his stomach rumbling loudly.]

{B}

[Alternatively you stumble across a man face down on the ground in the middle of fucking nowhere. If you come close enough to check, he does seem to be alive, just unconscious, and actually starting to wake up!]

{C}

[Or there's a Zeno in your setting. Who knows why! (BECAUSE IF ENOUGH YEARS PASS IT'S EASY TO SAY HIS FANTASY SETTING BECOMES YOUR SETTING, MAYBE HUMANITY STRAIGHT UP FUCKING RESTARTED, WHO KNOWS? THIS MAN IS OLDER THAN THE HILLS.) Anyway follow your dreams, feel free to start something more specific or ask me to start something more specific within certain lines, I'm really excited please love me.

Also feel free to just straight up game setting this shit. Court/AFD/QM/LR this shit come at me bros.]

Comments

[theyregooddogs]

How do you know the bear was female?

[defendless]

Female brown bears have narrower shoulders than males, so it isn't hard to tell them apart.

[theyregooddogs]

[deep, deep inhale then slow exhale. holstering his gun and shifting the gear on his back before closing the gap between them and taking hold of zeno's shoulder. will tries to manipulate zeno's head in a few directions, keeping his sight locked on his eyes...]

[defendless]

[his eyes are a clear, unmuddled blue, and he doesn't seem to be on anything.] Mister?

[theyregooddogs]

What?

[and shifting to check zeno's arms, pressing into his forearm to test, then manipulating it to lift up from the side as well as back and forth]

[defendless]

What are you looking for? [he's just letting Will do whatever, but for all intents and purposes he seems to be a perfectly healthy (hah) and normal seventeen-year-old boy, if a bit on the thin side.]

[theyregooddogs]

[one last check over, just grasping for any indication, before nervously letting go, wiping his hand on his pants again before holding the strap of his gear]

Whatever would tell me what to do with you. I'm— I'm not a psychologist.

[defendless]

[oh. smiles, in a sad sort of way.] Zeno can't be of help with that, sorry. Zeno has been this way for a long time.

[theyregooddogs]

I think, next time, I'll visit a beach.

[going to look very meaningfully at zeno before he starts walking again, you better come with]

[defendless]

Sorry Zeno ruined your relaxation. [you know, like he believes Will was remotely relaxed with the spooked looking around and the gun. he follows along cooperatively, though.]

[theyregooddogs]

No . . . No, no. It was a good reminder that breaks are just— Breaks.

[defendless]

Ah... Zeno can't argue with that one.

[theyregooddogs]

Wh-What do you do when you're with people?

[defendless]

Zeno keeps his head down, mostly. Juggles for money sometimes, if Zeno needs it. Goes from place to place and doesn't stay long. But that way of living got more complicated when people started putting cameras everywhere, so Zeno started his break around then.

[theyregooddogs]

[cocks his head a bit, caught on that]

Surveillance cameras became popular in the late nineties. And you, you're a teenager. At least, you look like one if nothing else.

[defendless]

Zeno has a very youthful face!

[theyregooddogs]

If I shot you right now, what would happen?

And don't lie to me.

[defendless]

... Zeno would get better in around two minutes, then the place where Zeno was shot would temporarily be covered in impenetrable scales.

[theyregooddogs]

. . . And how many times have people tested that?

[defendless]

More times than Zeno cares to know.

[theyregooddogs]

[another head tilt, eyes screwed shut]

That explains the suicidal tendencies. —Well, the diminished self-preservation.

[defendless]

Zeno can't exactly deny the first, but since it never gets anywhere...

[theyregooddogs]

Can't help checking, though. Right? Could be the one time something sticks.

[defendless]

It won't. Zeno has tried many, many ways. And it makes people sad.

[theyregooddogs]

Which leaves you more alone. No one understands, no one thinks in the same frame of time as you.